Saturday, May 18, 2013

Bananas Take a Bow...

Work lately has been bananas, and therefore has kept me away from the stove, and ultimately away from writing. But this is too good not to share. Today, the Bigger Half and I went to the Brimfield Antiques Fair in Brimfield, MA. The whole thing is a little overwhelming, and unless you're outfitting a room with furniture, or have a specific nick-nack in mind, you're likely to run yourself in circles as crowds swarm and each booth seems to morph into the next. Still, I picked up a real gem today."Bananas take a bow...in attractive new dishes for the up-to-date hostess"

Published by the Home Economics Department, Meloripe Fruit Company at Long Wharf in Boston, MA, my guess sometime during the late '50s, early '60s, the book is chock full of gems of recipes involving banas.Some of the recipes are fairly run of the mill, normal classics like banana cream pie.

Some are really nasty sounding attempts to include bananas in savory dishes like meatloaf.

And then there was this. Banana Pineapple Rounds.

The instructions read "Place a ring of pineapple around each end of a peeled ripe banana. Garnish with greens and dressing. Serve this salad with saltines or cheese wafers." Really? Not only is this absurd, and a weird presentation for a weird recipe, but check out the photo. The last of the instructions should read, "Substitute penis for banana."